Joan Mitchell Center Artist-in-Residence

Yukiyo Kawano

Yukiyo Kawano is a third-generation hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) who grew up decades after the bombing of Hiroshima. Her work is personal, reflecting lasting attitudes toward the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kawano received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Art in 2012. Since then, Kawano has exhibited her work in the US, Japan, and Australia. Kawano has given lectures at Aspen Institute in Tokyo; Portland State University, Portland, OR; Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA; Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME; among many other venues. She has appeared on radio shows such as OPB Radio, Portland, OR, and 3CR Community Radio, Melbourne, Australia. Kawano has received numerous grants, including the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant in 2012; a Regional Arts and Culture Council grant in 2016; and The Oregon Arts Commission in 2017. Since 2016, Kawano’s project Suspended Moment has been selected by New York Foundation of the Arts’ fiscal sponsorship program. She will be an Artist-in-Residence at Santa Fe Art Institute (SFAI) in February/March 2019. Kawano currently lives in Portland, OR.

“My work is a direct response to the tragedy of the past, but the past I depict wants to remember the present. People say my work is like a dream; it is not meant to deliver certainties. It asks us to remain in the present, so that we can develop a new relationship of mind and body, confront the ongoing deceptive rhetoric that surrounds us, reject violence, and save ourselves from our own extinction.”

Column of The Floating Lanterns, 2016, paper, ink, stones, thread, 8 feet x 7.5 inches x 7.5 inches. A paper lantern that was used in From Hiroshima To Hope memorial event (Green Lake, Seattle). These lanterns are the symbols of the souls once floated (letting go by the participants of the event) on the lake and brought back by the volunteer members on the same night. As installed in Suspended Moment at Littmen, Portland State University, Portland, OR, 2016.